1. Technical Field
The invention relates generally to a method for producing corrugated material. More particularly, the invention relates to a method for forming corrugated material by cutting the edges off the corrugated material into a strip material, and then processing the strip material into smaller pieces at a variable processing speed. Specifically, the invention relates to a method for varying the processing speed in response to variations in the input speed of the strip material, such that the strip material is continuously converted into a plurality of smaller pieces having the same generally uniform shape.
2. Background Information
This invention relates to the process of making corrugated material, forming the material into boxes or other similar commercial products, and processing the waste edge strip material of this process into a new commercial product. Previously, the waste edges of this process were discarded as unusable.
Paper based corrugated material is formed in a corrugator and fed directly into an edge cutter. The edge cutter cuts the corrugated material to a specified width to match the size requirements for the particular commercial product being produced. The edge strip material is cut away and the corrugated material travels on to be formed into the finished product. As the strip material comes out of the edge cutter, it is either fed into a bin for later processing, or fed into a trim processing machine (“trim cutter”) whereby the long narrow pieces are cut into smaller pieces by a blade. After this cutting stage, the cut strip material is collected, baled, and processed as waste by-product of the corrugation process.
Trim processing machines to date include a blade which simply cuts across the width of the strip material at a static interval, regardless of the speed with which the strip material enters the trim processing machine. This static cutting frequency results in large pieces when the strip material moves through the machine at a fast rate, and small pieces when the strip material moves through the machine at a slow rate. Furthermore, trim processing machines and methods to date cannot match the fast line speeds of the corrugator and edge cutter. Therefore the strip material typically is collected after exiting the edge cutter, and later fed into the trim processing machine.
Heretofore, existing trim processing machines and methods have been characteristically inefficient and lacking in processing the waste edge strip material during the formation of the corrugated product. Therefore, the need exists for a trim processing method which can match the fast line speeds of the corrugator so the strip material may be processed at the same time the corrugator is forming the commercial product. There is also a need to cut the strip material at a cutting frequency which is sequenced or matched with the speed of the corrugator line and edge cutter, thereby allowing uniformly sized pieces of the cut strip material to be produced across the entire range of possible input speeds which may dynamically change during operation. The need also exists for a trim processing method which cuts across both the length and width of the strip material to produce cut trim pieces which are smaller than the overall width of the trim.
If a manufacturer of corrugated products could produce a uniformly sized by-product of the corrugation process, regardless of the line speed or width of the strip material, the cut strip material pieces could be resold as a commercial product and used various applications such settings as animal bedding. This represents an enormous improvement in the field, as currently scrap strip material pieces are simply discarded.